The human heart has four one-way valves that aid in regulating the flow of blood therethrough. When one of these natural heart valves becomes damaged, it sometimes becomes necessary to replace the damaged natural heart valve with a prosthetic one.
Natural heart valves occur in a variety of sizes; therefore, prosthetic heart valves are provided in a similar variety of sizes. In order to properly support heart valve implantation surgery, a hospital must maintain a full inventory of these differently sized heart valves. Such inventorized heart valves must be maintained, protected against physical damage, sterile, and in such a manner as to allow quick access to a particular sized heart valve.
Typically, such a medical facility will also own one or more sets of heart valve orifice measuring gauges as well. Such gauges are used to correctly gauge the size of the natural heart valve orifice to insure the selection of a properly sized prosthetic heart valve.
The applicant has previously invented a new heart valve orifice measuring gauge (see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 597,795). Amongst other unique features, this new gauge is very small in size and can be disposed of after use, thereby avoiding the need for resterilization and restorage.
Ideally, a hospital will maintain an inventory of such disposable gauge sets in a quantity equal to the number of prosthetic heart valves that are then in storage. In this way, the medical facility can be assured that it will have a supply of gauges that will support the supply of heart valves. Unfortunately, current containers as used with heart valves are completely independent of current containers as used with heart valve orifice measuring gauges. This would force a hospital to assume additional inventory responsibilities if it wishes to take advantage of the convenience of using disposable gauge sets; i.e., a proper inventory of heart valves must be maintained as before, and an additional proper inventory of gauge sets must be managed as well.
There therefore exists a need for a storage unit that would allow a disposable gauge set to be shipped and stored in inventory with prosthetic heart valves. This storage unit must allow the gauges to be accessed for use without violating the sterility of the heart valve containment vessel. This storage unit should allow that particular heart valve to be returned to storage if it is found to be the wrong size as determined by a gauge reading, and should further allow the unused gauge set associated with the correct sized heart valve to be joined with the first heart valve container. This would maximize convenience and avoid the need for a dual inventory record.